


Her name is pronounced Victory

by dwellingondreams



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Abusive Parents, Alternate Universe - Age Changes, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Arranged Marriage, BAMF Brienne of Tarth, Belligerent Sexual Tension, Blue Eyes, Brienne is the Best, Canon-Typical Violence, Casterly Rock, Character Study, Child Abuse, Consensual Underage Sex, Drowning, Engagement, F/M, House Lannister, Implied Jaime Lannister/Brienne of Tarth, Incest, Internalized Misogyny, Introspection, Jaime Lannister Being An Asshole, Minor Cersei Lannister/Jaime Lannister, Ocean, POV Brienne of Tarth, POV Jaime Lannister, POV Third Person, Period-Typical Sexism, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Pre-A Game of Thrones, Present Tense, Sibling Incest, Sparring, Tarth (ASoIaF), Teenagers, Two Shot, Tywin Lannister's A+ Parenting, Walks On The Beach
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-23
Updated: 2019-10-26
Packaged: 2020-10-28 08:56:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Underage
Chapters: 2
Words: 14,452
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20775905
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dwellingondreams/pseuds/dwellingondreams
Summary: "The question is, are you but some opportunist, a wolf caught befriending the sheep? And I answer that I am confused and aloof, and yet arrogant for victory." - The Silent Comedy, 'Victory'.In truth, it would be almost funny, if he were not so numb. He saves a city, kills a madman who happens to be his king, and gets caught fucking his sister, all in very short order. The noble hero is then forced to marry a cow of a girl as punishment for his crimes. It’s the sort of humorous tale mummers might sing about, or act out in a play to the roaring approval of the audience. Jaime would laugh, were he not the center of it.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> For the sake of clarity- this rests upon an AU in which Jaime is dismissed from the Kingsguard by Robert, then promptly caught with Cersei by his uncle. Brienne has been aged up here to be just two years younger than him, because otherwise this would just be Jaime bullying a small child, and he does enough of that in canon. This Jaime has not had years as a Kingsguard serving Robert, and this Brienne has never met Renly nor joined anyone's service as an aspiring lady knight. They are meeting under formal circumstances, not with her transporting him as a prisoner. They're both very young and the dynamic is somewhat different as a result!

Jaime is thinking about Aerys when Kevan catches them.

Specifically, he is thinking about how easily the Mad King’s throat gave up while he ruts into Cersei. They are in a dark corner of the armory, and they haven’t been brash enough to do this sort of thing- fuck outside of a carefully selected and locked room, that is- in what seems like decades, but here they are, Tywin’s two great prizes, surrounded by all his other great prizes, rattling sword and spears alike as they drive into each other. 

“Mine,” she’ll say, raggedly, in between gasping his name, “mine, you’re mine-,” and he’ll nod and grin gamely and wait until she’s close to screaming his name to croon a rebuttal in her ear. Cersei and him have been arguing since they could speak. Neither age nor sex nor circumstances has ever gotten in the way of a disagreement between Lannisters, and they are so very fond of that, contradicting one another, that they once got into a near hour-long debate while lying in bed with each other about whether or not Aunt Genna had liked Cersei’s gown or not at the feast.

But right now he is not thinking ‘mine’ or ‘I win’ or ‘Cersei, shut up’ or ‘I feel like I’m dying, this is brilliant’, he is thinking about Aerys, in between glimpses of their mottled conjoined reflection in a nearby burnished suit of armor. Cersei has managed to hook both legs up around his waist, and is clawing his shoulders near to ribbons, like a frantic cat, as she scrambles for purchase. It’s been too long. Far too long. They only had time to slip off together once before this, since his return to the West, and that was hasty and rushed, a quick tumble in some mossy foothills, and neither of them got much joy from it. She was crying, commanding, “I thought you were dead, I thought they’d killed you, Jaime, I thought you were dead, don’t ever leave me again-,”

And when Cersei cries, although she will forever deny it, she sounds half a girl again, shrill and frightened and hurt. She is still half a girl, he thinks, panting into her unbound hair, smelling the wine and honey on her skin. This is the only time he has ever felt like the elder twin, in the aftermath of King’s Landing. The only time he ever felt like he knew something, anything, that Cersei didn’t. Their childhood was a long hazy summer’s day of him running after her. That is all he recalls, if he really tries to concentrate on the days before Tyrion’s birth. Him running after her, a blur of gold and green and high laughter. She was always faster than him, nimbler, darting through doorways and leaping down stairs, until one day she wasn’t. 

One day Cersei was a lady, not a playmate, and she didn’t, couldn’t run anymore, and somewhere along those lines playful tender touches and sweet kisses became something else entirely, not a game but a release, really. Jaime had always enjoyed taking out the laces of her stays, oh so neatly, like he was unwrapping a present, or really, freeing the helpless maiden chained to a rock, waiting for the oncoming dragon. Like he was rescuing her from herself, or from Father, or their own name. But she always made him lace her back up, afterwards, and how he hated that.

Fabric rips, and for an instant he is sliding the blade along Aerys’ neck, tearing through ragged beard and wrinkled skin alike, and he could be peeling a peach or fucking his sister or killing a man, and he feels a sudden wave of sickness so strong that he nearly dry heaves, until Cersei moves her hips just so and it’s gone and his teeth are skimming along the edge of her neck. She laughs, it rings out loud and clear like a bell, he smiles waveringly now, eyes wet and mouth too dry, and he would bite down but he’s afraid he might vomit all over her, and that wouldn’t be very brotherly, now would it?

Then she gasps, and not in pleasure, and for an instant he thinks he might have hurt her- he was worried about that the first time, despite her insistence otherwise, worried she’d bleed and it’d be his fault and she’d hate him, worried she’d regret it come the morning and resent him for the rest of their lives, but all of that was before he’d finished undressing her, and once they were naked and sprawled all over each other all in an ungainly heap of adolescent limbs all those worries vanished instantly. 

“Alright?” he breathes in her ear- she’s seldom ever asked him to stop in the middle of something, but he always has, even if she only meant to tease him.

But it’s not alright this time.

Not because he’s doing something unwanted, because unbeknownst to him, Cersei is staring over his bloody shoulder in horror at their uncle.

Jaime doesn’t remember what Kevan says or what Cersei says, because his ears are ringing again like the bells of the capitol after they’d ceded to the rebels. What he does remember is the barely perceptible look she gives him, the barest hint of a glance, at a sword lying readily in reach. The suggestion. Plea, even. Kevan was a strong man in his prime, but he’s been thick about the middle and slow as porridge for years now. Jaime knows he could pluck his cock out of Cersei, pluck up that sword, and kill his uncle in a matter of moments. Kevan might not even have time to scream. Aerys did not. What is kinslaying, after a kingslaying? 

But he doesn’t. The moment passes. It’s too late. 

His ears are still ringing when they are sitting, half-dressed, in Father’s solar. Jaime traces old scars across his bare chest absent-mindedly, while Cersei adjusts her torn gown and tells him to do up her stays. He ignores her in a fit of pettiness. The armory was her idea, something fun and daring in the middle of the night, safe enough, she’d claimed, safe as any other place they’d ever had each other, and wasn’t there something about it, surrounded by all that gleaming steel, a thousand reflections of them doled out in silver and gold and bronze? 

“Jaime!” she snaps, but it muddles into a sob of fear halfway through. 

He looks at her dully, then holds her when she crumples, weeping. “It’ll be alright,” he lies. “It’ll be alright-,” 

He supposes he could tell them that she hadn’t wanted it, that he’d forced himself upon her in a fit of madness, but Kevan will contradict that, claim that Cersei exclaimed in fear of him, not Jaime, that she was only horrified at being caught, and he’s not sure it would matter to Father either way. He’d likely expect Cersei to impale herself on the end of a spear before she ever let her own brother defile her. Maybe he will hang them both by morning. Jaime would have privately found the idea stirring once, as a boy of fourteen or fifteen. Better to be dead with the one you love than live without them, that sort of thing. But he is fresh off a war now, and he’s seen too many bodies. 

“He won’t kill us,” he says now. “Listen to me, sister. He won’t. You are promised to Robert. He has just gotten me back as his heir.”

Giving up the Kingsguard had seemed like nothing to him, two moons ago. He had felt absolutely nothing at all. No relief or regret or bitterness or triumph. The king he’d served was dead. He was the one who’d killed him. Men were already reviling him behind his back. What more was there to say or do? Father had been the happiest he’d seen him in years, with Jaime free of the white cloak and the promise of a Baratheon cloak for Cersei’s fair shoulders. Jaime had nodded and smiled and all the while stood, in his mind, in the throne room, slicing through Aerys’s throat, a never-ending moment that stretched on and on, a lazy spool of thread, a river winding down from the mountains. 

Cersei has managed to compose herself by the time Father enters, and Jaime has managed to lace up most of her stays. Father won’t kill them, he knows, intrinsically. But he also knows Father might very well like to. Tywin knows Kevan would never lie to him; not out of brotherly affection but because Kevan may as well be a dog, he is so instinctively loyal to his own. Tywin has always led, Kevan has always followed. So there is no question of ‘if’ or ‘your uncle claims’. There is only the question of how to rectify, salvage, any of this.

“Have you been taking moon tea?” Father asks Cersei.

She stares at him, frozen, then jerkily nods her head.

“Good,” says Father. “Stand up.”

She throws a desperate look at Jaime.

“Father,” says Jaime now, frightened, the fear stirring him back to life, because while Father might not kill them, there are many things he could do that fall just short of that, “it was me, it was me, I convinced her. I did, she’ll tell you. Only the once, we’ve only ever the once-,”

“Never,” Cersei is repeating breathlessly, “we never- Father, it was only this once, never-,”

They sound like children frantic to avoid a spanking after being caught stealing tarts from the kitchens.

“Pick up your skirts,” Father tells Cersei.

She makes a hiccuping sobbing sort of noise. “Please, please, I promise- I swear to you, we’ll never-,”

“I made her,” says Jaime suddenly, half-standing, “she didn’t want to, I made her, I lured her there, Father, it was me-,”

“He didn’t spill his seed in me,” Cersei is babbling, hysteria rising to a boil, “he didn’t, Father, I’m still a maid, I promise, I’m still good- I can still be Robert’s wife, please-,”

Father pushes her down firmly across the length of the desk, forces up her skirts when she shrieks and tries to struggle free, and then, gripping her by the back of the neck, lashes into her buttocks and legs with the leather strap in his hand. Jaime does not move, just as he did not move when Aerys was raping his queen, or when Elia was weeping where she thought no one could hear, as he did not move when Rickard Stark burned. It will be worse if he moves, if he tries to interject, to interfere. It will be worse for her, and worse for him. 

Father does not touch Cersei’s slim back, not her chest or face. When he is done he lets go of her and she staggers back to her seat, trembling, blood trickling down her pale calves, and then Jaime stands up without being asked, because it is his turn, after all. Father spends much longer on him, and while Jaime has been beaten before, he never felt any particular rage behind it then. He was never happy to be thrashed or belted as a boy, of course, but he understood that Father was not doing so out of uncontrolled fury but simply to discipline him. This is not discipline. This is punishment. 

When he is done they are both sitting in agony, welts and gashes rising on their skin, and Father sets down the strap, and tells them what is going to happen now. Cersei is going back to her rooms, where she will be tended to by a maester, and where she will drink moon tea night and day, under the watchful eye of a septa, until it is time for her to go to King’s Landing and wed Robert. 

She will not leave her rooms without his express permission. She will not eat, sleep, shit, or so much as take a turn round a corner without a chaperone or guard. Her scars should be faded by the time the king takes her to wife. And when he beds her, she will act every bit the maiden, and she will be quite an adept horsewoman by the time they reach the capitol, so the lack of any blood on the sheets can be explained away by a maidenhead given up in the saddle long ago. 

She will not write to Jaime. She will not dictate anyone else’s writing to Jaime. Aunt Genna and some other ladies in waiting will be her constant companions from now through her first year of marriage. If she gives Robert a dark-haired son, perhaps she will be allowed to lay eyes on Jaime again someday. 

As for Jaime, well, there is no concern of him being with child. But he will be leaving. Within the month, perhaps sooner. He will not set foot in Casterly Rock again until he is a man wedded and with a wife bedded and with child, his child, a proper Lannister heir. He will not write to Cersei, because her correspondence will be watched, and if he attempts to-

Cersei has been sent out by then, of course, refusing to let Father hear her cry again, just shaking and heaving with suppressed tears, and Father says to Jaime, leaning down slightly so they are on the same eye-level, “If you ever attempt this again, if you ever so much as consider such a thing, if I see or hear of any evidence suggesting you intend to, I will kill her, and wed Robert to a cousin. Understand this. My daughter will be queen, but not with your bastard at her breast. Not with your seed dripping down her legs.”

Then he draws back, and says tightly, “Your mother-,” but no more escapes him. He just shakes his head. “At least she is not here to witness your shame.”

_Shame_, Jaime wants to say, _she caught us kissing and fondling when we were but six. She did not tell you, did she? She said she would not if we promised never to do it again. We did. We lied. We were back to it not a week after she died. Whose shame is that, Father? Hers or ours? Would you have whipped her too, had you found out she kept such a thing from you?_

A fortnight later, Father tells him he is going to Tarth, which to Jaime seems the furthest place imaginable from both Casterly Rock and court. He may as well be packed off to Essos. Jaime knows he has met Selwyn Tarth at least once before, when he was still a squire, but he can not remember the man’s face or voice for the life of him. He remembers the daughter, though- not the girl herself, she was never brought to court, but what they said of her. Big, he recalls. Big, unwomanly, ugly, would live out her life a maid if not for the fact that she was her father’s heir. That is who he is to take to wife. Selwyn Tarth’s ugly, mannish daughter, if the rumors are true.

In truth, it would be almost funny, if he were not so numb. He saves a city, kills a madman who happens to be his king, and gets caught fucking his sister, all in very short order. The noble hero is then forced to marry a cow of a girl as punishment for his crimes. It’s the sort of humorous tale mummers might sing about, or act out in a play to the roaring approval of the audience. Jaime would laugh, were he not the center of it. He knows he should be worrying more for Cersei. She is the one being caged like an animal, the one who has suffered the worst humiliations, the one who Father was angrier with, truly. 

He might have beaten Jaime more, but he was the most furious with Cersei, because it was she who risked the promise of his grandson on the throne. Jaime knows Father will never forgive either of them, but he could perhaps someday look at Jaime without wanting to throttle him. Cersei… it is good that she will be queen, in that sense. Once she gives Robert an heir, Father’s direct influence over her and who she keeps at her court will likely wane, and she will be able to slip free of those chains. Jaime will still be trapped on some blue isle, fucking a giant of a woman who must be ecstatic at her luck, to have Tywin Lannister’s heir directly delivered to her. 

“Will you bring me back some sapphires?” Tyrion asks him, the night before he is to leave. Tyrion does not know, Jaime thinks. As far as he can tell, only Father, Kevan, and Genna know. No one else. Perhaps some of the servants- there must be rumors, at the very least- but none of them would dare so much as breathe a word of it outside these halls. Tyrion does not know that this is why Jaime is being sent away, nor at ten does he understand how getting to travel across Westeros and visit the Sapphire Isle could be a punishment. Perhaps they should have betrothed him to the girl instead. 

Then Jaime feels badly, for Tyrion is just a child, after all, and has never had a cruel word or unkind look for him. “I’ll do you even better,” he says wryly. “I’ll bring you back the Just Maid. Then you could be a knight by your next name day, brother. The sword no shield can stop.”

Tyrion brightens, as he always does when he remembers something he read in a book. “The sword of Ser Galladon of Morne. He slew a dragon with it.” At ten he is still boyish enough to add quickly, “I wouldn’t, though. If they were real, what would be the use of killing one-,”

“Yes, the Valyrians thank you,” Jaime drawls, but he ruffles Tyrion’s shock of white-blonde hair all the same, glances down at his ugly face, and feels a brief spurt of affection bloom in his chest. He will miss Tyrion. Not as he will miss Cersei, as he will long for her, of course, but- He’d thought they’d have more time together, him and his brother, him and his sister. Now they say the war is over, or nearly over, at any rate, once Stannis takes Dragonstone. He thinks of Rhaella, who they say is heavy with child, and her little son, of the last time he saw them, just before Aerys sent them from the city. He remembers her bruises, and the raw relief in her violet eyes.

The taste of failure is stinging at his tongue all the way to Tarth. Failing his knighthood, failing Rhaegar, failing Rhaella, failing Elia and the children, failing Cersei, Tyrion, Father- No. He will not feel anything about failing Father. It is Father’s fault that Cersei will never forgive him now. Jaime could not help her; he should have tried anyways, but he did not because it was Father, and although Jaime was never a very obedient son, he could not- He does not know why he did not move. Why he froze when Kevan found them, froze when Father was beating her. She will never forgive him this. She will let him back between her legs eventually, take him in her arms, even whisper that she loves him, but she will never forgive him, and he will just have to live with it.

It's just that Jaime never expected Hell to look quite so blue.

It is so vividly blue it seems to almost burn with the color, bluer even than the sea around it and the pale grey clouds overhead, sunlight breaking through in swathes to illuminate the towering mountain peaks and deep valleys. It is larger than Jaime expected, as well, almost as large as the Arbor, certainly thrice the size of any of the Shield Islands, and Dragonstone must be a minuscule stretch of rocks in comparison. It is big and blue and beautiful, he will admit that much, watching gulls wheel overhead and the white sands of the bay come into view. 

The port they pull into is a three hours’ ride from Evenfall Hall. Jaime can see the castle looming up above them, on cliffs overlooking the calm seas. He is so relieved to be off the bloody ship that the prospect of a grueling ride up to it seems almost invigorating instead. At the very least, there will be plenty to explore, plenty to see and do, plenty of fields and forests and lakes and rivers to keep him occupied and well away from his betrothed and her father. He supposes there must be brothels as well. He could find some whore with long blonde hair and willowy arms and legs and pretend her eyes were green and her lips full, in the dark. But the thought is not much of a consolation. He has never had any woman but Cersei, never wanted any woman but Cersei.

They might whisper mockingly, pityingly, of this girl he is to wed by this time next year, but in truth, he would feel the same if she were beautiful and elegant. It might even be worse then, for he would always feel her to be a shallow imitation, a shadow of his sister. So it is better that it is like this, then. He will not have to pretend to be suitably enchanted with the maiden fair. He will simply do what is expected of him, and spend much of his time out of doors, and once he has gotten a babe or two on her, he will see Cersei again, and by then she will be too firmly settled as queen for Father, or anyone, to stop them.

And Father will not even be able to complain, for he will have a grandson for the Iron Throne, a grandson for the rock, and a grandson at Evenfall. A perfect victory in all regards.

Jaime is flushed and dripping with sweat from the ride, for it is a warm late spring day, upon his entrance to Evenfall, and while he pushed his mount hard, he does not feel victorious, or even satisfied. He feels hot, and tired, and more than a little annoyed, because Selwyn Tarth immediately reminds him of Father, not in appearance, but in bearing. He stands tall and proud despite his age, keeps his beard and hair well-trimmed, greying though the blonde is, and regards Jaime with an easy sort of tolerance, a bemusement, almost, as if it were he who were the Lannister of the Rock and Jaime who were the-

But gods, the daughter.

She got her towering height and her broad shoulders and long limbs and straw-colored hair from her lord father, that is clear enough, but while Cersei also undeniably resembles Father, it is not like this. Brienne of Tarth is big, he knew that, but he’d been expecting ‘tall for a woman’, taller than Cersei, perhaps, or even a inch or two shorter than him- No, she is taller, she is. Taller and heavier, by the looks of the muscle that her rich blue velvet gown does little to disguise. Even her thick neck brims with it, and her big, calloused hands, laced together before her as though she must restrain herself. 

Her eyes are firmly set upon some tapestry on the wall behind him, but he can see that her face, neck, and what little there is on display of her meager chest- does she even have breasts?- are coated with freckles and spots from the sun. Her nose is bulky, crooked in a way he has only ever seen on fighting men, her lips more swollen than plump or full, her hair comes just past her shoulders and lies as limp and lank as yellowed yarn, and her brows are thick under her furrowed forehead. 

She also has eyes of the deepest blue he has ever seen, arresting, really, enough to make him openly gawk, even if the rest of her was not enough to provoke shock and fascinated revulsion. Her eyes are not revolting, though. They are-

“You are very welcome here, Ser Jaime,” Lord Selwyn says evenly, and Jaime knows instantly that he is the sort of man who always keeps his tone even, contained, mild. Milder than Father, at any rate, but no less dangerous. This is not a man he will be able to disdain or ignore or even humor amiably enough. This one will be watching him, very carefully. Jaime forces a broad smile, bows at the waist, sweat trickling down his scalp, and takes Brienne of Tarth’s hand in his own, trying not to start at the feeling of her rough palm against his.

“My lady-,”

She jerks her hand away before he can press even the imitation of a gallant kiss against it, blurt outs, “Thank you, my lord,” ducks her head as if dodging a blow, then turns on her heel and hurries- no, strides- off, disappearing through an archway, arms swinging at her sides like oars. 

Jaime stares after her, glances back at Lord Selwyn, and says with a smile even more forced than before, “I can see that she has the humility of the Maiden Herself, my lord. Such a modest daughter honors you-,”

“Indeed she does,” says Lord Selwyn, seamlessly interrupting him, and then summons his steward to show Jaime to his rooms. 

Compared to the bustling hive of the Rock, full of aunts and uncles and cousins always underfoot, Evenfall is quiet, almost desolate. All his footsteps echo, the corridors and stairwells are deserted more often than not, and while Selwyn keeps a singer and a mistress, both keep strictly to their respective spheres of influence. Jaime spends most of his time alone, except for meals, during which very little is ever said beyond the basic pleasantries and inquiries. They all dress well for dinner, but Brienne is often flushed and her hair is often damp, and so he is not altogether surprised to find that the girl trains at arms in her spare time, under the watchful eye of Ser Goodwin. 

She is also younger than he first realized- fifteen to his seventeen, despite her size and hoarse voice. She still has a little girl’s high laugh, though- he hears her shout with laughter just once, playing with some children outside the stables, children who will no doubt point and laugh at her, not with her, in a few years, when they are old enough to understand that she is not what a highborn lady, or even a woman, should be. Still, Jaime is not as disgusted as he perhaps should be. Really, he is more perplexed, for she seems just as upset as he is with this match. He thought she’d be falling to her knees and thanking the gods for her good fortune. 

Truthfully, it almost smarts at his pride. There is nothing wrong with him, aside from being a kingslayer and a sister-fucker, and she only knows about the former, not the latter, and truly, what was Aerys Targaryen to her? She never even laid eyes upon the man. Does it really disturb her so? Or does she simply not wish to be wed? He’s never known a girl who did not hope to marry. Even Cersei did, for all that she loved him first and foremost. Does she simply despise men as a whole? Does he look like someone who once wronged her? What is it? 

But he can never ask, because she avoids him as if he were liable to give her greyscale. At the sight of him, she oft turns and walks quickly- quicker than he could catch up without breaking into a run, and he will not run after the wench- in the opposite direction, unless her father or her septa is present. Or unless she has a sword in hand. He learns that quickly enough. She may flee from him in a dress, but when she is dressed like a man and bearing sword and shield, Brienne of Tarth always stands her ground. 

“You have some skill with a blade,” he observes, near three weeks into his stay, when he can finally get close enough to be within earshot without her noticing. She is bright pink with exertion, soaked with sweat, and her shoulders go rigid with tension when his voice comes wafting over to her. Jaime smiles when she turns to stare balefully at him; he does not hate the girl, for all that she seems to think it. He is only curious. 

There is plenty of time to learn to hate her, all her little habits and tics and tendencies, once they are wedded and bedded. Cersei would advise him to play the gracious lordling for as long as he could bear it, and then to distract her with a horde of brats. Of perhaps she would simply advise him to jump off the nearest cliff, rather than lie with another woman.

He thinks of her and Robert. She will be wed by this time next month. He will not be there. He pictures Cersei in her wedding gown, a vision of ivory and gold, dripping in lace and silk, clasping Robert’s massive hands in her own, pressing a chaste kiss to his lips. He thinks of them at their feast, sitting at the high table while the musicians play and the courtiers fawn, and he thinks of how Robert will likely be drunk by the time the calls for the bedding go up. Perhaps he’ll be unable to perform. That would be some comfort, although after all these years of wishing for a kingly husband, Cersei might be infuriated. Or maybe she will be relieved. She’s only ever known Jaime, after all. He thinks of Robert Baratheon fucking his sister like a tavern whore and elects to ignore the churning in his gut in favor of calling for a tourney sword for himself.

The wench steps back from the dummy she was hacking at, and inclines her head stiffly to him. “I will leave you to it, Ser.”

Oh, no. They are not playing this game again. If he is going to endure this hell for the next year, he thinks he is owed some company in it. Besides, she has the advantage- this is her home, her people. It is not as if she were dragged off to Casterly Rock to be gawked at and mocked. They may point and stare at her, but they whisper after him as well, the Kingslayer, that his father’s shame for his actions against Aerys landed him here. If only they knew. Father would have slit Aerys’ throat himself half a hundred times if he could have gotten away with it. Jaime is sure he spent many a night lying awake imagining it. 

“I think not,” he says, lightly enough, and is delighted that she is dutiful enough to immediately stop, however reluctantly. He’d be much less inclined had she been blushing and tongue-tied at the sight of him from the very beginning, but this is different. She is staying, but not because she wants to or because she finds him alluring in any sense. He smiles all the wider, as if to test that. The girl stares back at him, implacable, although her blue eyes flit from the tourney sword to the straw dummy back up to his grin. “Will you not briefly indulge me, my lady? I think a man has a right to know how well his future wife dances.”

“How _what_-,”

He is on her in two strides, and sheds the false grin for a true smirk when she parries, rather than immediately losing her grip on her sword. “Your father does not mind that his only daughter engages in such activities?”

For a moment he thinks she is not going to respond at all, and just bare her teeth instead, but then she grits out, blocking a second blow, “I am his only child. He would not deny me this.” Then she turns suddenly, forcing him back to the wall; he’s surprised and a bit excited that he actually has to retreat in the face of her swing- those long arms are good for something other than uselessly milling about at her sides, it would seem.

“And how could he?” he retorts. “You do seem to be unreasonably suited for it. Tell me, my lady, was your mother so-,” she almost makes him curse, when she lands a blow on his leg, her first, and he sees the barest hint of a smile quirk the side of wide mouth. Gleeful bitch, she’s starting to enjoy this. But he wants to see the rest of it, he will confess, this is better than cold stares and grim looks- “So physically endowed as well?”

“My mother was a gentle lady,” the wench snaps. “She did not carry a sword, no.” Then she adds, sharply, “she died when I was six.”

“Seven, mine,” Jaime replies almost boredly, as Mother’s face flashes like lightning through his mind, the look in her eyes when she’d found him and Cersei that day. The disgust. Perhaps not at them, but the act itself. The disgust. One never forgets that, to have a mother give them such a look. The look of ‘what have I wrought?’. He always cared far more for her approval than Father’s, he will admit, but perhaps that is most boys of seven, before they are sent off to foster. Mother was their world. Cersei idolized her. And then she was gone, and they crumbled into each other once more.

“I’m sorry,” says the girl immediately, frowning, and he takes advantage of it to hit her in the stomach; she recoils with a grunt, and then he is on the offensive once more. He is barely trying, in truth, it is like sparring with a fresh squire, but at some point- the third time he hits her, this time hard on the shoulder, something changes, and his smirk dies, and her hesitance evaporates. And then she comes at him, hard, and the first time she actually puts her full strength and reach into the blow, he feels the vibration all the way down the wooden tourney sword and up his right arm. 

She’s strong. He’d known she was stronger than your average maid of fifteen, that is blatantly obvious to anyone, but he’d attributed it to the burly strength of peasant girls who spend their days in the fields doing hard labor. ‘Strong enough’. She is not ‘strong enough’ it is not ‘sufficient’, gods, she is strong- Not as strong as him, not now, when he is in his prime, when his blood is starting to sing again, because it’s been what seems like ages since he really enjoyed holding a sword, but- strong. If he is not careful, she might best him, if only temporarily. That is shocking in an intriguing sort of way, to him. 

Their sparring stretches from an acceptable amount of time for a one-off jest to far too long. She’s panting and grunting with every breath; he’s ragged in the chest himself, exhaling sharply through his nose every other moment, and his hand is starting to cramp. He hasn’t had a challenge like this since he last sparred with Prince Lewyn. But he can’t let her know that, and the thought that she might be beginning to suspect that he’s in fact working quite hard to keep her from besting him is too much to bear. At this rate, she will wear him down. Not enough to win, of course, but-

His eyes light upon something above her head, and he dodges her blow and raises his sword in a quick salute to Lord Selwyn, who has come out onto a balcony overlooking the courtyard to watch them. She pauses for a fraction of a second, confused, then glances up and back, and in that very small window he rushes forward and sends her sprawling. Only considering after the fact, of course, that he just knocked his future wife to the ground in front of his future good-father, tourney swords or no. Oh well. They’ll just have to pack him aboard the next ship bound for the mainland-

Selwyn’s expression is unreadable just long enough to make Jaime’s sweat run a little colder, and then he smiles as his daughter jumps back to her feet, brushing herself off and snatching straw and dirt from her thin hair. “Father, I-,” But he’s already gone back inside. 

“You did well enough, for a maid,” Jaime says, in what he feels is a rather complimentary tone. 

She stares at him, hard, and just when he thinks she is about to stalk off, muttering under her breath, she says crisply, “You were slow enough to best me, for a kingslayer.”

They spar near every day after that. Five days into it Jaime finds himself flat on his back, her sword prodding at his chest, but he gets his revenge the next day when he trips her up and disarms her with a single well-aimed strike, that would have taken off her hand had they been fighting with live steel. She’s good. He never says it aloud; she knows she’s good, and were he to say it she’d likely assume it was some sort of attempt to catch her off guard. She’s right, it would be. There’s not much room for conversation when sparring, but he manages to claw a few scraps out of her all the same; she’s been betrothed before, twice. The first boy died, the second she refuses to speak of. 

He thinks of Lysa Tully, the girl he almost wed, now tucked away at the Eyrie, wed to Jon Arryn, a man old enough to be her grandsire. He wonders who her father caught her fucking to warrant that. Likely not her brother. The wench had a brother, and two sisters, but they are all dead; the boy drowned, the girls never made it out of their cradles. Jaime is not so cruel as to ask after them, but he wonders what they might have looked like; surely at least as big as her. Gods, the brother might have been a new Mountain, if his sister is already this size at fifteen. 

He could be content with the sparring; at least it’s something to do, even if it wins him new bruises and aches every day, he’s gone soft since King’s Landing, he fears, but- He cannot take the disdain, especially coming from her. He makes mocking mention of it in his letters to Tyrion, the way the wench turns up her nose at him over dinner as if he were the beast and she the fine lady, as if she had any right to look down upon a Lannister of the Rock, but it irks him far more than he’d like to admit. Should she not be thrilled? Here is a man who, while he may jape about it, has never tried to prevent her from her swordplay, who has never curled his lip at her gruff manners- he could be far worse. He has been kind, nearly-

_Kind,_ he thinks of Cersei laughing, pink with amusement, _have you lost your wits? Did Father beat the sense from you, as well as the manhood? You are acting as if you must court her. You do not need to court her, you needs tolerate her until you can get a child on her, and then deposit her at the Rock as proof of your loyalty to Father, and come after me. The one you love_.

Of course, if Cersei is thinking about him right now, he doubts she’s anywhere close to laughing.

They might have gone on for months that way, only speaking to each other in terse comments and snide jabs over the clash of wooden swords and in between panting for breath and cursing- and she does have a mouth on her, he wonders if she learned to swear like that from her father or the master at arms- had he not gone to the cliffs that day to dive. He’s no stranger to jumping from them; he was raised surrounded by them, overlooking the Sunset Sea, and when he squired at Crakehall he leapt off his fair share there as well. Girls used to come watch and point and laugh at the boys who hesitated at the last moment, wavering on the edge.

Jaime never hesitated, although he always had a bad habit of searching for Cersei’s face in the crowd, stupid as it was. She was never there, of course- they seldom saw each other after he went off to squire and Father took her to court. And Father’s likely glad of it now; had they been left to their own devices between the ages of ten and fifteen, there really might have been some Lannister bastards squirming about in Cersei’s belly. But he’s never let himself dwell on the thought much, although Cersei whispered all sorts of pleasant fantasies to him when she was convincing him of the Kingsguard, when she still hoped to be a princess, if not a queen.

He thinks of Viserys, who he recalls as a skinny, pallid slip of a boy, clutching his mother’s hand like a child years younger than six or seven, and almost laughs at the thought.

The sky’s nearly the same blue as the sea, the air’s fresh and balmy, and the grass whispers up against his legs as he scouts for the best spot. It’s been years since he went swimming anywhere. He can vaguely remember some brief visit to the seashore- he could not have been any older than five years old- with Mother and Cersei. Father was not the sort of man who accompanied his wife and children to go swimming, too busy as Aerys’ long-suffering Hand. But it is his only memory of his mother in a plain pale green gown, devoid of any jewelry or finery, her golden ringlets unbound down her back, billowing in the wind. She was not Lady Joanna, she was just Mother, and they could have been any other family, as she chased them through the surf and tickled Cersei until she screamed with laughter.

But he is likely misremembering it. Someone else must have taught him to swim. Uncle Ger, perhaps, or Uncle Tyg. She was a ‘gentle lady’, as the wench would say. Gentle ladies do not go swimming with their shrieking, sand-crusted children. Cersei would never do such a thing; just the idea of getting sand in her shoes would turn up her nose. His sister bemoaned her needlework and her poetry and the high harp when they were small, but by the time she was ten she was not one for horses or climbing or running about anywhere, either. Jaime had felt robbed of a playmate, in a sense; his best friend had been replaced by a golden doll. But she was still the same wild, willful thing underneath, and that was some consolation.

Standing on the edge of the cliffs, looking out over the sea, he tries to picture his betrothed plucking at a harp or picking up a needle and thread, and scoffs to himself. No, this one won’t be darning his socks. Perhaps he can find a decent squire somewhere around here. Or take up needlework himself. That does get a laugh out of him, and he knows that if anyone were watching him they’d think him a madman; half dressed, on the edge of a cliff, cackling to himself about needlework and ladies. Instead he rolls his shoulders, backs up a few paces, sucks in a breath of sharp ocean air, and propels himself forward. 

The feeling of plummeting, the complete lack of control over his surroundings, is relieving to an alarming extent. He cuts neatly into the water, pops back up with a shout, and grinning to himself, is promptly scooped up by a wave and slammed into a small cropping of rocks in the shadow of the cliff. Dazed, he sinks, and the blue gets that much deeper and darker, until it rushes up his nose and down his throat, and pounds at the back of his eyes, thrums in his ears, and wouldn’t you know it, it almost looks green, green like wildfire, green like Cersei’s eyes when they’re full of unshed tears, green as the Kingswood in spring-

He wakes on the shore, and some bastard is slamming two hands locked into a fist down on his aching chest. Jaime spurts up seawater, eyes and mouth and throat burning, gasps, and stares at Brienne of Tarth. She is still fully clothed, although dressed in riding leathers and missing her boots. The water has tinted her straw hair a sickly greenish grey, her eyes are wide with alarm, and he can see the outline of her breasts clearer than he ever has before through her sodden clothing. “This suits you,” he mumbles. “Remind me to dowse you in water before every sparring session, maybe you’ll win the next one-,”

She hits him. Not nearly as hard as she could, but hard enough to hurt.

“Fuck,” he snarls, brushing sand off his lips and struggling into a seated position. “Can’t you see I’m dying, wench? What maester taught you that beating a drowned man-,”

“I thought you might be dead!” she exclaims, although really it’s more of a growl. Not demure alarm, genuine shock and anger. “You- you bloody fool, what were you thinking-,”

“I watched you chomping away at your breakfast like a horse at hay and decided to end it all on a whim,” he sneers back, and is far too exhausted to dodge her second blow. “Keep them coming. I’ll pay you back tenfold once we’re wed, Beauty. What was the rule again? The width of one’s thumb? I’m sure dear Rhaenys would have made an exception for a wife as wide as you-,”

She doesn’t just thump him then, she winds up and properly punches him. “Fuck,” he would have said again, but his mouth is full of sand, and now some blood as well, and he can barely feel his tongue. He settles for a groan, and leans back on his elbows, squinting out at the sun glimmering off the sea. She’s trembling with fury.

“You almost drowned,” she finally spits out. “Do you have any- you could have died, and no one would have even known what had happened-,”

“Following me, were you?” he eventually rasps out, cutting off her rant. “Just couldn’t keep away? I’ve seen the way you look at me. Granted, you seem to prefer it when I’m in pain- shall I take this as a rehearsal for our wedding night? I’ll beat you, you beat me, then whoever’s left standing can drag the other out to sea and drown them-,”

“You’d be dead if I hadn’t been here,” she mutters furiously. “Just because you can’t admit a woman saved you-,”

“A woman?” he scoffs. “Is that what you’re calling yourself-,”

“I am a woman,” she snaps back. “Whether or not you recognize it. I am a woman and I am just as capable-,”

“You’re fifteen,” he sneers. “You’ve never even set foot off this bloody, accursed isle. Don’t kid yourself, wench-,”

“I have a name!”

“As do I, but you seem to prefer Kingslayer,” he lets out a hoarse laugh. “I had no idea House Tarth had such royalist inclinations. Are the Baratheons not your liege lords?”

“Aerys was mad and cruel,” she recites stiffly, as if quoting from a historical text, “but you swore an oath to protect-,”

“Men swear oaths every day and break them by sundown,” he jeers back at her. “Maesters, septons, knights- even husbands. Will it please you if I swear to keep to mine, when we wed? Look at you, wet already, you can hardly wait-,” he reaches for her, albeit weakly, and she grabs his wrist and twists, hard.

“Don’t touch me.”

“Too late.” He pulls, as hard as she’s twisted, and all that’s accomplished are their foreheads banging painfully together. She lets go in dull shock, he shoves at her, furious, furious that he’s sprawled here like a half drowned rat on a beach at the edge of the fucking world, leagues and leagues from civilization, from Cersei, with an unruly giant of a girl who can’t keep her bloody mouth shut-

She plants both hands on his chest and pushes back, grunting, he pulls at her lank hair, and they go tumbling over. Jaime’s on top for an instant, just long enough to feel something stirring which he never thought would, and then she’s bucked him off her, and he does manage to dodge her next punch, attempts to pin her arms to her sides, gets head-butted in the nose for his trouble, scrambles backward in the sand, then throws himself forward, tackling her, and what follows is several moments of muffled shouts and scuffling.

“You bastard,” she says at one point, “you stupid bastard, you think I want to marry an honorless-,”

“You think I want to marry a freakishly-,” the words die on his lips, somehow, because the raw, wounded hurt that flashes across her broad face startles him. He’s offended and disparaged her to her face plenty, but never- never to the point where she genuinely looked like he’d just pummeled her in the stomach. She hesitates, jerks back from, suddenly the shy, awkward maid again, not the snarling she-bear of a woman she was an instant ago.

“Then leave,” she says forcefully. “No one is keeping you here against your will, Ser. Go. You are a Lannister. There must be women a-plenty-,”

Just the one, he thinks, but even that thought is fleeting, not the deep sting of sorrow that it should be. “I am a dutiful son,” he settles for, sardonic as it is. “I obey my lord father’s commands.”

“And I obey mine,” she snaps, and pulls her long legs up under her chin. They are not slender and supple like Cersei’s, they are all hard muscle, but he’s disturbed to realize that his arousal hasn’t faded much at all. He really is going mad.

“I misspoke,” he says after a moment, as the wind lashes down the shore, buffeting them with spring warmth and ocean salt. “You- I should not have said that.”

“You are not the first, you will not be the last. I provoked you,” she utters coldly. “I should not have insulted you either, Ser.”

“Just call me Jaime,” he says, too quickly. “Let’s- you should call me Jaime. And I-,”

“Brienne.”

“I know your name is Brienne,” he mutters.

“I wouldn’t think it, the way you speak, my lord,” it’s her turn to sneer.

“Brienne,” he tests it on his tongue; it flows more freely than he would have thought. “I mean it. You are not a freak.”

“And what did you think, when you saw me?” she challenges, with a raised eyebrow. “I’m not a child. My septa taught me well.” She digs her fingers into the sand. “I know what I am.”

“You are still a highborn lady.” Why in the seven hells is he comforting her? He should get up and walk away, leave her to sulk. She’s an ignorant little girl in the body of an ox. What is he doing, sitting next to her in the sand, arguing over respect and insults? “You- you’ve been a gracious hostess.”

She eyes him out of the corner of her eye, then barks a laugh.

After a moment, he tentatively smiles, a real one, not a smirk or leer. “It only took me three months to get a laugh from you, my lady.”

“Brienne.”

“Brienne of Tarth,” he corrects himself. “What does that make me? Jaime of the Rock?”

She just shakes her head, but her shoulders have loosened up, and the air is quickly drying her hair. The late afternoon sun brightens her complexion, somehow, makes her eyes seem to glow on her face. They are beautiful, he thinks suddenly, the first time he has let himself admit it. She has extraordinary eyes. Bluer than blue.

“What?” she wrinkles her crooked, freckled nose at him.

“Nothing,” he says. “Thank you for saving my life, Brienne of Tarth. I should hate to leave you a widow.”

“We are not even wed yet.” But she very nearly smiles- one corner of her mouth twitches again. Her lips are full and pink and speckled with sand kicked up by their fight, glittering granules in the sun. 

“Well, consider this practice, then. I doubt it will be the last stupid thing I do.”

She does smile then, showing her crooked teeth, but Jaime almost finds it charming, rather than pitiable. He chances a smile back. “What?”

“I doubt that very much as well, Jaime of the Rock.”

For the first time in ages, he feels a queer stab of victory.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The very first ASOIAF fic I ever read was a high school modern AU focused on Jaime/Brienne. Wild. This was initially intended to be a fairly lighthearted 5000 word one-shot, and instead I present this bloated monstrosity full of Lannister family angst, Jaime's near-constant brooding, assholery, and PTSD, and Brienne generally being Precious and Too Good for this Cruel World. This is intended to serve as a stand-alone, not a serious, in-depth look at a Jaime/Brienne marriage, although I may update this with a Brienne POV in the future, who knows. Selwyn intimidating his future goodson could be pretty fun. Or Jaime beating the shit out of Ronnet Connington, or cheering Brienne on as she beats the shit out of Ronnet Connington. Or the two of them poking about some castle ruins trying to find the Just Maid for Tyrion.
> 
> You can find me on tumblr at [dwellordream](https://dwellordream.tumblr.com/).


	2. Chapter 2

Brienne does not know what to think of the man she’s pledged to wed, and for a long time it was easiest to simply not think of him at all.

She’s always been good at that, ignoring things. If you put your mind to it, clear your thoughts out like cobwebs with a good broom, and focus on the task at hand, Brienne’s found that you can ignore just about anything. Some things can’t, shouldn’t, be ignored, of course- injustice, cruelty, greed, deceit- but most things can. Most things can, and Septa Roelle once told her that courtesy is a lady’s armor, that she could not go wrong if she minded her manners and did as was expected of her, but Brienne has often found that tolerance offers a stronger sort of protection from the whims of the world.

She can tolerate plenty. She learned young, the first time someone curled their lip in pity or derision as they took in her too-tall, too-wide, too-bulky frame, the first time she entered a room and scattered whispers and laughter broke out, the first time a girl called her ugly, the first time a boy called her freak. Anyone can tolerate that sort of thing, with enough experience. It doesn’t bother her. Not enough to matter, anyways. What matters- what matters is improving, overcoming, pushing herself further. She will never be a knight, but she could at least… She could at least be something useful, other than a laughingstock, a tragedy.

What matters is making Father proud, or at least assuaging the deep, abiding guilt and bitterness she feels every day. He is a good man. He does right by his people, he rules wisely and fairly, he is kind when he could be cold, stern when he could be weak. He deserved better than this, better than her. He deserves Galladon and her sisters, he deserves his wife back, not- not her. Brienne sometimes thinks of herself as a lumpen ball of dough, left over from a pristine loaf of bread or pie. Only someone dropped the perfect loaf, and now she is all that remains. Unnecessary, burdensome, misshapen. A left-over no one much wanted.

But Father has never not-wanted her. Not once when he lays eyes upon her, has he ever looked at her pity or scorn. Anger, sometimes. Grief, other times. Pride- pride, often enough, and that always makes the rest of it seem like nothing more than the breeze of the sea, easily swept away. Brienne would give anything to make him proud of her until the end of his days, the end of her days. He is a good man. It would be easy for him to hate her, or at least resent her, begrudge her, but he does not. “My daughter and heir,” he always introduces her, “Lady Brienne of Tarth.”

And when he says that so warmly and securely, as if challenging anyone to protest it, she’s never loved him more. His daughter. His heir. She is so grateful to him for that, that when he told her he had a new match for her, she did not protest, but nodded and thanked him for his consideration, as she had with the last two. She has only a few memories of young Brynden Caron- she does not think he was cruel, for she would have recalled that, at least, but he was not friendly, either. Unhappy, likely, that he’d been ordered to wed her, a girl three years his junior but a head taller than him, even at the tender age of seven. And Ronnet- Brienne does not like to think on that. There’s no point. What’s done is done.

Better- better to have it gotten it out of the way, than dragged it out any longer.

But the third; Brienne knows she is sheltered, she does, she has only left Tarth a few times, and even then, never been any further inland than Felwood, but even she knows what the name Lannister means, what it signifies. And she cannot understand why a man like Tywin Lannister, whose daughter was just crowned queen alongside the new king, would send his heir, his firstborn son, the Kingslayer, a man- a boy they say is the greatest knight in his generation- to Tarth. To wed her. Brienne. 

“Why?” Father had echoed her mildly, when she asked, fidgeting in her seat across from him in his solar. He’d looked steadily at her, those blue eyes just a shade paler than her own meeting her incredulous gaze. “He wants Tarth, I imagine. Much like the rest.” Father has always been honest with her. Kind when possible, but honest. He tells her it’s a lazy man who has to lie; that any lord worth his salt ought to be able to negotiate his way through a conflict without speaking falsely. That does not mean he must say everything that’s on his mind, of course. 

“Do you think he thinks… that we are…”

“Extraordinarily wealthy?” Father had chuckled then. “I am sure Tywin Lannister knows well enough that any mines on this isle ran out generations ago. No. It is a point of pride, for him. Now there will be Lannisters in the west and the east, and in between as well.” He’d gestured to one of the tapestry maps hanging on the wall. Brienne helped to weave a few of them, although her work always left something to be desired, as hard as she tried to make her thick fingers cooperate, to conduct the needle or loom with the grace and care her septa said it deserved. She never knew what to do with her too-big hands until she first gripped a sword with them.

“But…”

“But we are just the two of us,” said Father. “An aging man long past his prime, and his young daughter. Someday I will die, and Tywin Lannister will do his damnedest to ensure that the second son of yours who comes here never feels the need to call himself of Tarth at all.”

“No,” Brienne had said then, stung, outraged at the thought, “No, I would never- I could never forget our name, Father. I would never allow such a thing-,”

“He does not think you will allow, he thinks you will obey,” Father said with a slight shrug, but she saw the smile tugging at his lips all the same. “Yet he does not know you, daughter, as I do. So you must forgive an old man’s faith in his child. I know you will not allow it, whether you are called Lady Lannister or not. And I know that no son of a Lannister could ever make you forget where you come from.” 

His faith had heartened her, strengthened her resolve. She had never met Jaime Lannister before, but Brienne had awaited his arrival the way one might anticipate an enemy army landing on their shores. She had doubled her time in the yard, and applied herself to rehearsing Septa Roelle’s teachings with all the grave determination of the Warrior himself. She did not care if he was as handsome as they said, or as ugly as sin. 

She did not care if he was thrice the swordsman she would ever be, or an overblown braggart who’d ascended to the Kingsguard on his family’s name, not his own merit. She did not care if he was cruel, or lascivious, or arrogant. She did not care if he was meek as milk. He would not- could not- overwhelm her. A thousand waves might crash against a rock without breaking it, and Brienne would be that rock, stalwart and steadfast and utterly immovable. 

She’d endured fifteen years of taunts, gossip, jeers, sneers, and open insults. She’d cried to herself to sleep more often than not at times. She’d looked in the mirror and hated, hated, hated what she saw, wanted to smash it, wanted to smash her own face, pummel it into something more pleasing to the eye, something soft and pretty and slender. But all that was behind her now. Father had put his trust- his legacy- in her, and she could not, would not fail him. She would undertake this the way a knight might a sacred quest. She would devote herself to preserving House Tarth’s future, and even if-

Even if the thought of marriage- the thought of lying underneath some sneering, dismissive man- the thought of being bed bound to bear children- all those were weights, and she would shoulder them when they came upon her, she’d told herself. Don’t think, don’t fret, just focus. Just do what is necessary. You will not break. You will not. He can say what he pleases, do what he likes, and you will still stand tall and proud, and you will remember that this is your duty, and no man- no woman who does her duty can live in shame.

And then she saw him, and she thought, _He’s beautiful_. And then she sparred with him, and she thought, _He’s good_. And then he opened his mouth, and she thought, _he’s the most infuriating, arrogant, pig-headed, condescending, self-pitying, childish man I have ever had the misfortune of meeting. I will kill him within a week, we will never even make it to the sept_. 

Yet he seemed bound and determined to do that for her, when she’d ridden down to the beach only to watch him plummet into the choppy water, bob up, and then be snatched away by the waves. Brienne felt no love for Jaime Lannister, nor any like, either- in the the three moons she’d known him, he’d proven himself to be an excellent sparring partner, a horrible dinner partner, and-

And a fool of a swimmer.

Later, she’s sitting breathless and angry but also confused, on the beach beside him, drying in the sun, when he asks, “What?” she slips into a smile, a real smile, not the sort of smile she should ever be showing the likes of the Kingslayer, and she says almost lightly, as if they were friends, as if he wasn’t petty, and selfish, and aggravating, and above all, honorless, “I doubt that very much as well, Jaime of the Rock.”

There’s something else to his smile, as they look at each other then, for he’s held her gaze a fraction too long, and Brienne feels a sudden swooping sensation in her gut, thinks for a split-second, Might he kiss me?, and then almost recoils from the thought itself, reddening like a plum and glancing away from him. Stupid, stupid- what is wrong with her? Kiss her? He would likely rather lock lips with a corpse. He is simply addled from the seawater, and likely at least a little relieved to be alive. They will be back to the usual glares and thinly veiled insults by dinner.

But at dinner he instead regales her father with the tale of how she saved him from the sea, and Brienne sits there in stunned silence, trying to determine what his angle is- does he hope to win Father over by praising her? Does he hope to lull her into a false sense of security? Isn’t he ashamed? Isn’t he embarrassed, to have been saved by a girl? Why is he doing this? Why is he still here? She dresses like a man most of the time, she rides astride, she eats like a horse, he said it himself, she offers no wit nor charm-

He said he was here because he obeyed his father, but ‘obedient’ is not something that has ever come to mind when she thinks of him.

“Brienne has always been a strong swimmer,” Father says, as the servants begin to clear the table and they rise from their seats. “I insisted she learn in open water, after my son drowned.” Father has never been anything but frank about Galladon. Brienne does not know if that is better or worse than pretending he never existed at all. She has only the faintest of memories of her brother, a blonde boy smiling down at her. Smiling. She was only four then, he could not have known what she would become, but he was smiling at her with such warmth and affection-

Yet how can she miss someone she never knew?

If Galladon had lived, the Kingslayer would not be here at all, and Father would have his son and heir, and Brienne would have her brother. And everything, she knows, would be far better for it.

Father bids them both goodnight then, pressing a kiss to her cheek as he always does, and Brienne inclines her head politely to the Kingslayer, her table manners still present, and makes to go on her way to her own rooms, but-

He catches her by the arm, not hard or hurtful, but she freezes all the same, in shock, then looks back at him, eyes wide, waiting for the pleasant mask he put on all dinner to slide off his face and reveal the sneer or smirk underneath. But he is not- he does not seem angry, or embittered, or mortified in the slightest. “Shall we go for a ride tomorrow?” he says instead, as if nothing has happened at all, as if- as if they were suddenly friends.

Brienne stares at him blankly.

He sighs. “Surely I must thank you for your heroics today, my lady.”

“Stop it,” she snaps, tugging her arm away from him. “There’s no need to pretend, Ser-,”

“I’m not pretending,” he retorts, scowling. “Why do you think I went diving? I am damnably bored, and imagine what sort of misfortune might befall me, were I to go out riding on my own- You said it yourself, it will not be the last stupid thing I do-,”

“I am sure there are many men among this household who would be pleased to give you a tour of our lands,” Brienne says stubbornly. No, she won’t let him- Let him mock her like this, draw her in only to- She will not be indulged like some child, his attention is not a reward, she does not seek it, does not want it, and it is cruel of him to pretend-

“It doesn’t please me to ask them, it pleases me to ask you,” he retreats to his typical haughtiness now, affronted. “You cannot deny me, I am a guest-,”

“I very well can!” she spits back at him. “Do not- this is my home, you cannot presume to order me about as if-,”

“As if we were wed?” He’s flushed now himself. Likely from the wine, although she has never seen him drunk. She has never even known him to go out drinking and wenching at all. Brienne has privately decided there must be some lost lady love he still longs for. Why else would a man like him have such modest appetites here? “Perhaps you could consider this practice as well, for when you must listen to me, instead of stomping off in a huff-,”

Unbelievable, he is bloody well unbelievable, she knew it, she did, he simply seeks to bend her to his own will now, by capitalizing on their… their encounter on the beach. She will not stand for it. She will not. “What I must do,” she snarls, “is go to bed, as should you. Goodnight, Ser.”

She stalks off, leaving him sulking there, only for him to snap, “Goodnight, my lady!” after her, like the child he is, determined to have the last word. Damn him, and damn her. She should have let him sink like a stone, and been well rid of all of this nonsense. 

Yet in the morning he is not present at the table, and Father says, calmly as ever, “Ser Jaime is waiting for you in the stables. Your horse is being saddled as we speak.”

Brienne prefers to saddle Teal herself, but that is the least of her concerns at the moment. “Father, you cannot-,” she flushes, lowers her voice, “you know it is not- he is simply mocking me, playing on me, playing on you, you know what sort of man he is-,”

“A man who wishes to go out riding with his betrothed and see some of Tarth,” Father does not look up from the bread he is buttering. “Brienne. I know you mislike him. Yet I trust that he must be worth something, for you to pull him from the sea.”

“I would never let anyone drown, could I save them-,” she begins hotly.

“But you would not spar with anyone, nor linger to speak with them after dinner.”

“Father,” she is aghast. “You misunderstand, we- he does not like me in the least, Father, he is simply bored, and enjoys toying-,”

“He enjoys riding near as much as you, it would seem. You have a duty to your guest, daughter. Recall that there are plenty of cliffs for him to topple off of, should the need arise.”

The Kingslayer is a fine rider, and Brienne is forced to travel far ahead of the bored guards and the pursed-lipped Septa Roelle to keep pace with his mount. It’s improper for them to go off alone like this, but it was likely even more improper for her to get into a fist-fight with him on the sand the other day. If she hadn’t been betrothed to him already, she certainly would have been after that. Not that he has any care for her virtue. He doesn’t even see her as a woman, he’s said it himself. Perhaps that’s for the best. Indifference is cold, but leers and gropes would be far worse. 

They ride until well into midday before finally he reins up near a lake surrounded by greenery. It’s not the biggest lake on Tarth, but it’s still beautiful, a dark swath of blue amidst rolling green hills. He sees the look she is giving him, and says acidly, “Don’t worry, I wasn’t planning on swimming.” They’ve barely spoken to each other on the way here, but Brienne estimates they have a good half hour before the others catch up, and now it’s painfully awkward once more.

So they spar. Brienne fears he might be going easy on her until he hooks his foot around her ankle and sends her sprawling on the damp bank. Then they are back to normal, or whatever normal has ever been for them, parrying and thrusting and dodging, and he keeps up the usual stream of taunts and snide comments, until she- finally- disarms with a sharp clash of blunted steel. His tourney sword falls into the water, sinks into the shallow of the lake.

He does not retrieve it, only looks at her until she becomes distinctly uncomfortable and sheaths her own steel. “What?” she finally demands. “Will you not fetch your blade, Ser?”

“There’s plenty more in the armory.” He sits down in the grass almost petulantly, lays back so the bright green frames his golden hair. He wears it long; the curl look like threads of gold against the earth. Looking down at him like this makes her stomach flip over. It is only natural, she tells herself firmly. She’s not blind. He is handsome. Many men are. That does not make them good, or just. No one would call a Lannister just. They are power-hungry and ruthless. 

“You should have more respect for your things,” she snaps, wading into the water herself to get the blade. “But I suppose I should have expected as much from you.”

“Go on,” he says idly, “I know you want to- _Only a Kingslayer would treat a weapon with such little care_,” he imitates her altogether far too well, and Brienne whirls back around, incensed, water running down her breeches. Septa shook her head and sighed when Brienne refused to wear a gown out today, but she is far too old now to wrestle into a riding dress. 

She throws the sword at him, carelessly; he bolts up to catch it, one handed, and grins at her. It reminds her of a snake coiled up in the grass, poised to strike at any moment.

“You care for nothing,” she tells him coldly. “Least of all yourself. You almost died yesterday, and now you sit here and mock me-,”

“Wench, you take every other word out of my mouth for a mockery,” he rolls his eyes. “Believe me, if I really wanted to mock you, I’d put far more effort into it-,”

“Then stop moping and whining about like a child!” she cries in exasperation. “That’s all you do! Unless we’re sparring, you go off to brood- or sulk- or throw yourself off bloody cliffs!”

That gets under his skin. He scrambles to his feet, glowering. “A child? You don’t know the least about me, Brienne of Tarth-,”

“Stop that!”

“I was a knight, I was a _Kingsguard_\- I was there when the city fell, while you were still here playing with swords and hiding from your septa,” he snaps. “Do not lecture me about maturity. What do you spend your days doing, again? Sparring and following your father about like a dog-,”

Her hands curl into taut fists at her sides. “Don’t speak of my father that way-,”

“I’ll speak of your father however I like, we’re all to be one _happy_ family soon enough, aren’t we?” he jeers, and she-

She bends down, scoops up a hunk of silt and mud, and hurls it directly at him. Jaime blinks in shock as it spatters across his chest. “You just threw mud at me,” he says, after a moment, “in the middle of arguing over who is more childish- you _threw mud_ at me.” She can’t tell if he’s about to fly into a rage or if he’s actually amused.

He advances a step on her.

“Touch me and I’ll give you another bloody nose,” Brienne warns curtly.

He slowly crouches down, scoops up a handful.

“Lannister-,”

“I’m not touching you,” he says far too happily, and it begins.

Septa Roelle is infuriated to find them both caked in drying mud when she and the guards finally arrive, but Jaime is still consumed with intermittent fits of laughter, as if this whole scenario is the funniest thing he’s ever encountered. Brienne finds it hard to hide her own smile; she’s still annoyed with him, but- he just looks so ridiculous, and he committed himself to their battle as if it were a real engagement with the enemy, seeking cover and attempting to ambush-

At one point he slipped on the wet ground, grabbed her, and they both went toppling over again, only this time she landed on him, and had the brief satisfaction of seeing him look completely caught off guard and speechless, at least until she smashed another handful of mud across his pretty face. They bathe in the lake- nowhere near one another, of course, and ride back in damp clothes. He still exhales in amusement whenever he so much glances her way. Brienne tries for dignified, but it is hard when he still had mud on his nose and neck. 

“Did you enjoy your outing?” Father asks them that night at dinner, and for once she does not think Jaime Lannister is lying when he grins, catches her eye, and says he very much did. 

Steadily, it is different after that. Not all at once, and they still squabble and snap at one another much of the time, but- But there is sometimes a lightness there as well, something close to amicability. He compliments her on her skill with a blade a few days later, and she does not bristle and assume it is some kind of jape, to her own surprise. 

“Thank you,” she says instead, and when he offers a suggestion for her footwork, after a moment’s hesitation she takes it.

They go out riding often as well, nearly every day; he claims he will only tolerate hawking with company, so she takes Topaz out more often, watches her streak across the sky in a blue of tawny feathers while he chatters on about this or that; he cannot tolerate long silences, it would seem, and he very much enjoys the sound of his own voice. Yet he does not often talk about himself; about his brother, certainly, his uncles and cousins, about his years as a squire, but rarely about his father, or his sister the queen, or his home itself, Casterly Rock.

Tywin Lannister is not any younger than her own father, and if- when- he dies, the Rock will pass to Jaime. And she will be Lady Lannister. Brienne cannot even picture it, truth be told. She would be a laughingstock. She has never worn red in her life. She is not the sort of woman one could drape in gold and precious jewels, and sit holding court upon some ornate seat, tittering and fluttering here and there. Brienne is confident enough in her abilities to run a household; she can keep track of accounts, take servants to task, she knows every nook and corner of Evenfall Hall, she knows what would be expected of her as a wife, but being a wife and being a Lannister’s wife are too very different things. He must know that. He must know it would be disastrous to take her back there. Yet if he insists after the wedding, that they return to the Westerlands, she cannot refuse him as her husband. And the amount of travel alone- she would not see Tarth or Father again for years. If ever. 

“When we are wed,” she says to him one day, cautiously, after a particularly vicious sparring match, which left him with a cold compress on his wrist and her nursing a strained rib, “I- I should not begrudge you your right to travel, Ser.”

“Jaime,” he corrects, but he doesn’t sound immediately annoyed yet, which she takes as a good sign.

“That is-,” Brienne knows she should be trying to charm him, to ensnare him, to play upon his sympathies, but- he has very few sympathies. “I will not seek to keep you here.”

He scoffs. “Why, were you entertaining thoughts of chaining me to the bed?” His smile turns feline, teasing and mocking her once again. “I hadn’t thought you half so randy, Brienne-,”

“I only ask that you not insist I come with you,” she says in a quick, flushed rush of words. They are sitting on a low stone wall in the sun, as if they were equals, as if they were two squires conversing. As if they were friends. But he is not her friend, Brienne reminds herself. He could never be her friend. Not just because he dishonored himself, and broke his vows to his king, but because- because one’s husband cannot be one’s friend.

He is silent, and she stiffens, expecting some lashing of words, but instead he says, “And do you think I intend to drag you onto the next ship leaving port the day after wedding? To what, lock you away in some tower?” He exhales in either amusement or irritation. 

“No,” she mutters, “but I know you want to go home, and once I am your wife-,”

“Wrong on two counts,” he snaps, as if he were a frustrated maester and she his pupil. “I want to see Casterly Rock again the way I want to see a river of shit. And you are not bound to follow me, when we are wed. Do you think I want a squire? If you wish to stay here all your days, you may. If you wish to take a ship across the Narrow Sea and join up with sellswords, well, I wish you the best of luck.”

She recoils, unable to hide the hurt writ across her face, and he pauses. His green eyes do not soften- they are never soft, never- but he does not keep up on that tangent, either. “I am not welcome home again until I have an heir,” he says shortly, and that is far from reassuring to her. Brienne wonders. He is still very young; spring ended not a fortnight ago, and they are entering both summer and a new year, during which he will turn eighteen, she sixteen. It is not as if there is any particular rush for a man his age to produce children.

Perhaps he has a bastard, she thinks, and that is what got him into such trouble with his father. That might explain much. Perhaps the mother was banished somewhere, or worse, and he’s been separated from the child- she feels a sluggish trickle of sympathy, and seeing how his hair glows gold in the late afternoon sunlight, she says, as she has been taught to, “Gods willing, I- I will give you many sons, my lor- Jaime,” she corrects herself at the last moment.

The thought of lying with a man has never offered her anything but dread, even when she thought of men she’d liked the look of, men she’d had girlish crushes on. Of course, none of those men had ever seen her as more than something to pity or ignore. The idea of a man reciprocating in any way- it was best not to entertain such notions. It would only lead to misery. And she does have a duty, to Father, to continue their line, and to- to her husband, when she is wed, to… To do what he expects of her.

His nose wrinkles in disgust, and she reddens even more and stands up. “I’ll see you at dinner, then.”

“Brienne, wait-,” But she’s already striding across the yard. He would have to nearly run to catch up, which to her surprise, he does. “Wait.” He maneuvers himself into her path. Brienne comes to a grim halt, avoiding his gaze. Is it not bad enough that she has already humiliated herself so? She should not have said anything at all. As if he’d be pleased with the idea of children from her. As if he’d want any reminder of children at all. 

“I know this is not what you wanted, either,” he says, and for once his tone is intent and serious. “I didn’t mean to- to imply that- I don’t expect children from you,” he says swiftly, “I don’t expect _anything_ from you-,”

“I know you don’t,” she says shortly. “I should not have presumed- it is not my place to pry-,”

“You weren’t prying,” he snaps, “damn it, wench, I am trying to apologize! You’re not responsible for me or my concerns. I know I’ve hardly been forthcoming. Suffice to say, at present I am not my father’s favorite child.”

“So he sent you here, to punish you.” Her stomach drops with the confirmation. “With me.”

“No, you- Brienne, you are not a punishment,” Jaime says, groaning. “You- you are…”

_An ugly wench, a freak, unfit to be a wife or mother or worst of all, a knight, of no use nor any good to anyone, except to quell an old man’s fears that he may be the last of his line-_

“You are the best swordsman I have ever known,” he declares firmly. “Or nearly there, at any rate. And you saved my life, when I offered you very little in return. I’m in your debt. Truly.”

“I don’t want you in my debt,” it’s her turn to wrinkle her nose, “you owe me nothing.”

“Well, I’m in it anyways,” he retorts with that familiar haughty edge, as if she’ll just have to endure it, tolerate it. “So I am offering a truce. An- an alliance,” he adds, as if that might sweeten the deal. To her shock, he seems almost… nervous? But that’s absurd. The Kingslayer is never nervous. Beautiful people are never uncertain of themselves. Men least of all.

“An alliance?”

“One of my uncles told me marriage was a never-ending war, once,” he shrugs. “If I am to go into battle, I should like someone I can rely on by my side.”

“I don’t think that’s what your uncle meant-,”

“Well, it’s what I mean.” He sticks his hand out. Brienne stares at it, then at him. He rolls his eyes. “Must I explain everything-,”

She grasps it firmly and shakes it. He grins, not cat-like at all, a boy’s toothy grin instead, the hint of childish dimples to it, and she can’t help but return it, before she lets go. “Then I accept. But we’ll have to discuss conditions,” she adds sharply. “If we’re to be allied, I will not tolerate your sorry japes-,”

“Sorry?” he demands, as they walk back inside to put up their steel. “My sorry japes? Is that what you said? My japes are not sorry, wench. It is hardly my fault that you’ve less a sense of humor than Stannis bloody Baratheon-,”

“I’ll not have you calling me wench anymore, either!”

“Fine, then you musn’t call me a stupid bastard in the yard anymore when I win.”

A begrudging consideration. 

“_Fine_. But only in the yard.”

“Very well, wench-,”

She punches him, and for the first time not out of anger.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I meant to work on something else entirely, and then Brienne demanded her fair share of the narrative, and I couldn't say no. 
> 
> So for now this is a two shot, I think. Maybe a three shot? But then I'd feel weird about the uneven POVs, so it'd have to be a four shot. Definitely no more than that! At least I finally got to write some lighter stuff, from Brienne's end, since she doesn't have even a fraction of Jaime's backstory for how he washed up on Tarth.
> 
> And is it really a Brienne/Jaime fic if every chapter doesn't feature at least one misunderstanding/argument/incredibly bad attempt at apologies/all-out-brawl in the dirt?
> 
> If this does update again, it would be on a Saturday, for sure.
> 
> You can find me on tumblr at [dwellordream](https://dwellordream.tumblr.com/).


End file.
